My Yoga Teacher Training with Parimukti #1

- Why am I here? -

Roos shares her experiences of her month long training with Parimukti in Dharamsala

Blog post written by Roos Apotheker - originally, this blog appeared on Parimukti's website: http://www.parimukti.com/my-teacher-training-with-parimukti-1-why-am-i-here/

Half a year ago I was hiking through a national park when suddenly I had a gush of inspiration. A short while before I had quite my job, and since I had been wondering what I wanted to do in my life.

And suddenly it came to me: I wanted to become a yoga teaching-hiking-nurse-coach-guide.

After some contemplation I started a company with a good friend organizing hiking/(peer)coaching trips, applied for a job as a hiking guide, and currently I am doing my Yoga teacher training at Parimukti in India. Why a yoga teaching-hiking-nurse-coach-guide? I cannot tell you why, it just feels good. Chances are there that next year this will change again, and I may suddenly want to become a surf teaching-book writing-hostel owner. Who knows where my way will lead me. I don’t care, as long as I am happy on my way.

But here I am, at Parimukti! The first week of myone month teacher training has just finished and what a week it was! I am pleasantly puzzled by my body, my mind and my inner dynamics. As a not-so-regular-yoga-practitioner, physically practicing yoga for almost 4 hours a day is pretty intense. But as the Yogic philosophy teaches, you have to find your own limits and practice your own practice. This is a perfect challenge to learn to listen to your body, your willpower and look into the disturbances of your mind.

Next to the intense yoga practice, the daily hour of yoga philosophy is one of my favorites. Learning about new ways to look at yourself and your surroundings is both insightful and fun to do. When I had a serious burn out two years ago, I had to come from far, and learned to challenge all my beliefs and inner drivers. And although I have learned a lot in the past two years, I am still ready to learn more about finding my own way in life. Sometimes I feel I get closer to my Self – for example in my hiking inspirationmoment. But often I am distracted by my surroundings and I am not doing or feeling what I really want to do in my life. Yoga is one way of discovering how you can move closer to this Self (or in Yogic Sanskrit terms the Atman or Buddhi). In this one month training you really get the chance to try this out, physically, mentally and spiritually.

No matter where you come from or what you are searching for, this wonderful challenge called the “200 hour Parimukti yoga teacher training” will not only teach you to teach yoga, it will teach you about you. And I still have three weeks to go! I feel like a lucky bastard.